Joke: Murphy's Laws

[Eric Thelin <eric@generation-i.com>]

See http://dmawww.epfl.ch/roso.mosaic/dm/murphy.html#laws for these and
MANY more.

---MURPHY'S LAWS---

1. Nothing is as easy as it looks.
2. Everything takes longer than you think.
3. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. 
4. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that
   will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. 
Corollary: If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will
   happen then. 
5. If anything simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway. 
6. If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a
   procedure can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way,
   unprepared for, will promptly develop.
7. Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse. 
8. If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked
   something.
9. Nature always sides with the hidden flaw. 
10. Mother nature is a bitch. 
11. It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so
    ingenious.
12. Whenever you set out to do something, something else must be done
    first.
13. Every solution breeds new problems.


---Murphy's Law of Research---
Enough research will tend to support your theory.

---Murphy's Law of Copiers---
The legibility of a copy is inversely proportional to its importance.

---Murphy's Law of the Open Road---
When there is a very long road upon which there is a one-way bridge
placed at random, and there are only two cars on that road, it follows
that:
      (1) the two cars are going in opposite directions, and
      (2) they will always meet at the bridge.
    
---Murphy's Law of Thermodynamics---
Things get worse under pressure.

---The Murphy Philosophy---
Smile . . . tomorrow will be worse.

Quantization Revision of Murphy's Laws 
Everything goes wrong all at once.

---Murphy's Constant---
Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value 

---Murphy's Corollaries---
Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse. 
It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so
ingenious

---Law of the Perversity of Nature (Mrs. Murphy's Corollary)---
You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to
butter.
Corollary (Jenning): 
The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly
proportional to the cost of the carpet. 

Commentaries

---Hill's Commentaries on Murphy's Laws---
1. If we lose much by having things go wrong, take all possible care.
2. If we have nothing to lose by change, relax.
3. If we have everything to gain by change, relax.
4. If it doesn't matter, it does not matter.

---O'Toole's Commentary---
Murphy was an optimist. 

---NBC's Addendum to Murphy's Law---
You never run out of things that can go wrong. 

---Murphy's Military Laws---
1. Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than you are. 
2. No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. 
3. Friendly fire ain't. 
4. The most dangerous thing in the combat zone is an officer with a map.
5. The problem with taking the easy way out is that the enemy has already
   mined it.
6. The buddy system is essential to your survival; it gives the enemy
   somebody else to shoot at.
7. The further you are in advance of your own positions, the more likely
   your artillery will shoot short. 
8. Incoming fire has the right of way. 
9. If your advance is going well, you are walking into an ambush. 
10. The quartermaster has only two sizes, too large and too small. 
11. If you really need an officer in a hurry, take a nap. 
12. The only time suppressive fire works is when it is used on abandoned
    positions. 
13. The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming
    friendly fire.
14. There is nothing more satisfying that having someone take a shot at
    you, and miss.
15. Don't be conspicuous. In the combat zone, it draws fire. Out of the
    combat zone, it draws sergeants.
16. If your sergeant can see you, so can the enemy. 


---Murphy's Technology Laws---
1. You can never tell which way the train went by looking at the track.
2. Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with
   confidence. 
3. Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool
   discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it
   beyond recognition.
4. Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not
   understand.
5. If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then
   the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. 
6. The opulence of the front office decor varies inversely with the
   fundamental solvency of the firm.
7. The attention span of a computer is only as long as it electrical
   cord.
8. An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he
   knows absolutely everything about nothing. 
9. Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll
   believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to
   touch to be sure.
10. All great discoveries are made by mistake. 
11. Always draw your curves, then plot your reading. 
12. Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget. 
13. All's well that ends. 
14. A meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours
    are lost.
15. The first myth of management is that it exists. 
16. A failure will not appear till a unit has passed final inspection.
17. New systems generate new problems. 
18. To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer. 
19. We don't know one millionth of one percent about anything. 
20. Any given program, when running, is obsolete. 
21. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
22. A computer makes as many mistakes in two seconds as 20 men working
    20 years make. 
23. Nothing motivates a man more than to see his boss putting in an
    honest day's work.
24. Some people manage by the book, even though they don't know who
    wrote the book or even what book. 
25. The primary function of the design engineer is to make things
    difficult for the fabricator and impossible for the serviceman. 
26. To spot the expert, pick the one who predicts the job will take the
    longest and cost the most. 
27. After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done. 
28. Any circuit design must contain at least one part which is obsolete,
    two parts which are unobtainable and three parts which are still
    under development. 
29. A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from
    a simple system that works. 
30. If mathematically you end up with the incorrect answer, try
    multiplying by the page number.
31. Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. Any
    system which depends on human reliability is unreliable. 
32. Give all orders verbally. Never write anything down that might go
    into a "Pearl Harbor File."
33. Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure,
    temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables the organism will
    do as it damn well pleases.
34. If you can't understand it, it is intuitively obvious. 
35. The more cordial the buyer's secretary, the greater the odds that
    the competition already has the order.
36. In designing any type of construction, no overall dimension can be
    totalled correctly after 4:30 p.m. on Friday. The correct total will
    become self-evident at 8:15 a.m. on Monday.
37. Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. And scratch where it itches. 
38. All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door. 
39. The only perfect science is hind-sight. 
40. Work smarder and not harder and be careful of yor speling. 
41. If it's not in the computer, it doesn't exist. 
42. If an experiment works, something has gone wrong. 
43. When all else fails, read the instructions. 
44. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong the one that
    will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
45. Everything that goes up must come down.
46. Any instrument when dropped will roll into the least accessible
    corner.
47. Any simple theory will be worded in the most complicated way. 
48. Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to
    use it.
49. The degree of technical competence is inversely proportional to the
    level of management.


---Murphy's Love Laws---
1.  All the good ones are taken. 
2.  If the person isn't taken, there's a reason. (corr. to 1) 
3.  The nicer someone is, the farther away (s)he is from you. 
4.  Brains x Beauty x Availability = Constant. 
5.  The amount of love someone feels for you is inversely proportional to
    how much you love them.
6.  Money can't buy love, but it sure gets you a great bargaining
    position.
7.  The best things in the world are free --- and worth every penny of
    it.
8.  Every kind action has a not-so-kind reaction.
9.  Nice guys(girls) finish last. 
10. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. 
11. Availability is a function of time. The minute you get interested is
    the minute they find someone else.
12. The qualities that most attract a woman to a man are usually the
    same ones she can't stand years later. 
13. Before you find your handsome prince, you've got to kiss a lot of
    frogs. 
14. Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. 
15. It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. 
16. Never argue with a women when she's tired -- or rested.
17. Beauty is skin deep; ugly goes right to the bone.
18. Smile, it makes people wonder what you are thinking.
19. There is no difference between a wise man and a fool when they fall
    in love.
20. Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.